


lost and found

by atamascolily



Category: Bleach, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Duty, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28838961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: They never should have met, much less come to care for each other. Is it possible for a magical girl and a shinigami to stay together in a world destined to tear them apart?
Relationships: Hitsugaya Toushirou/Tomoe Mami
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been a _Bleach_ fan since the mid 2000s, but I only recently discovered _Puella Magi Madoka Magica_ in late 2020. It never occurred to me that two could go well together until I stumbled across the amazing crossover _As N Approaches Infinity_ by Corisanna, which absolutely blew me away with the possibilities from combining these two universes. In that fic, Hitsugaya and Mami have several scenes together and my brain's reaction was "Okay, we ship this now" (because it doesn't take much for my brain to ship things). So I started thinking about all the different ways in which Hitsugaya and Mami _could_ meet for a "Five Times" fic that eventually evolved into the present story. 
> 
> So while this fic is completely different and entirely unrelated to _As N Approaches Infinity_ , thank you to Corisanna for inspiring me to think about a new ship!
> 
> This story is an AU set prior to the start of the PMMM anime, and at the end of the Winter War arc in _Bleach_.

Mami's soul gem flared in warning as she roamed the city on patrol: a witch had manifested on the far side of the river in Mitakihara's industrial section. Now the workday was over and night was falling at last, the surrounding warehouses and factories stood empty and still. Mami preferred it this way: fewer potential victims underfoot during a fight, not to mention fewer witnesses.

It was a shame Kyubey wasn't with her today, but there was no help for it. Mami enjoyed the little creature's company, but he had a lot of work to do and many other magical girls to support in the never-ending fight against witches. It was selfish of her to want him to stay by her side now that she was an accomplished veteran who knew the ropes--or ribbons, as it were.

Stepping into the labyrinth, Mami was immediately assaulted by a whirlwind of purple. Clouds like rounded globs of paint -- or maybe they were meant to be stars?-- spiraled in a sea of smears, a tortured imitation of famous Impressionist paintings, but lacking any organization or logic. A black tower loomed in the distance, weaving back and forth in the same rhythm as the sky.

Mami considered the tower speculatively and raised her soul gem; it immediately pulsed amber in answer. The witch was in the tower, no question about it, though it would take hours at her current pace to get there.

But time and space were warped in labyrinths and the normal rules of physics didn't apply. Sometimes this worked in Mami's favor, allowing her to take clever shortcuts instead of going around the long way. Such was the case here, where a well-timed series of leaps and bounds in and around the painted sky bridged the gap to the tower in seconds. She pressed through the writhing doorway, expecting the witch to be lurking inside--only to discover someone had beaten her to it.

The tower was bigger on the inside that it looked on the outside. It had no ceiling, standing open beneath the swirling sky as the walls rippled and oozed like flames. The witch itself was nestled off to one side, a mass of black tentacles reaching out towards its opponent--the magical girl already inside.

Mami had never seen her before, but both the aura of magic emanating from her small frame and her rejection of the witch's distortions were unmistakable. The girl was extremely short, with a scabbard across her right shoulder that was as tall as she was. Her costume was a plain black shihakusho, more classically Japanese than the Western-style attire that most magical girls adopted. The garment was functional and practical but with an elegance of its own, Mami thought with an approving nod.

The girl's back was to Mami, obscuring her face for the time being--but the spiky tufts of shockingly white hair gave her an aggressive, boyish appearance, as did the wide stance she adopted with her katana as she parried the witch's attack.

Seconds later, three tentacles went flying overhead and the witch shrieked, writing in pain as it doubled down on the assault. Twenty tentacles slammed the girl, wrapping her tightly in their embrace as they prepared to crush her to death. Mami reached for a rifle, but the girl wasn't finished yet.

"Reign upon the frosted heavens, Hyorimaru!" she cried, her voice deeper than Mami had expected from someone her size.

Ice exploded from the katana, streaming out in every direction as the witch's tentacles collapsed from the weight. With a cry, the girl shattered the restraints that bound her and leapt at the witch, slicing through the dark blob with elegant precision.

The witch collapsed--and with it, the labyrinth. Reality re-asserted itself around them, the violent swirls of paint banished as quickly as they had come, to be replaced by an empty alleyway in between nondescript warehouses. The white-haired girl sheathed her sword, panting as she caught her breath.

Mami stepped out from the shadows, clapping her hands in delight. "Bravo!" she called. "Masterfully done!"

The other girl started, as if registering her presence for the first time, and turned to face her. Mami herself did a double take at the limpid blue eyes staring back at her in suspicion. Was this new magical girl half-Japanese, too? That would certainly explain the hair--

"You saw that?" the girl said, resting one hand on the hilt of her katana as if prepared to draw at any moment.

"Of course," Mami said calmly, careful to hold out both her hands where the other girl could see them. "Don't worry, I'm not here to steal your Grief Seed," she added, pointing to the Grief Seed wobbling on the ground on its unsteady axis a few meters away.

The girl wrinkled her nose. "I don't know what you're talking about."

She was using masculine pronouns, Mami noticed--perhaps that went with the boyish haircut and the attitude?

Confused, Mami tried again. "You'll need to cleanse your soul gem after using your magic like that."

"Oh, this?" The girl looked down at the Grief Seed and picked it up rolling it with across her palms with obvious curiosity. "I use it for what now?"

Mami bit her lip. Something didn't add up. This girl didn't fight like a newly contracted magical girl--but how else to explain her sudden appearance in Mami's territory and the complete ignorance of Grief Seeds?

"I don't think we've met before," Mami said at last, struggling to regain her footing. "I'm Mami Tomoe, the magical girl protector of Mitakihara City. Nice to meet you."

The girl frowned, as if uncertain how to respond. "Ca--Hitsugaya," she said at last.

Mami had learned the hardy way how important it was to be establish firm boundaries when confronting another magical girl. "Hitsugaya-san, you're operating in _my_ territory and I don't take kindly to interlopers. I'll let it slide just this once because you're new, but in the future, we either work together against the witches, or you find your turf."

Hitsugaya was startled by this announcement--though whether it was the implied threat or its matter-of-fact delivery was difficult to say. Any surprise quickly faded as she schooled her expression back to a blankness as chilly as her ice attack and shoved the Grief Seed into her sleeve.

"Well, nice to meet you, too, Tomoe-san. Rest assured I won't trouble you any further." With one final nod in Mami's direction, she turned and bounded away over the warehouse rooftop into the night without another word.

Mami stared after the strange girl for a long time. _Who knows, we might have been able to learn a lot from each other_ , she thought sadly, before shaking herself back to the present. It was a shame Hitsugaya hadn't been interested enough in a partnership to stick around, but there was no point in wasting any more time on might-have-beens. Hitsugaya might not be interested in Grief Seeds, but that was her mistake, and she'd suffer the consequences if she was too proud to take some well-meant advice.

Meanwhile, Mami had more hunting to do herself before she could call it a night. 

***

Hitsugaya thought his time in Karakura had taught him all there was to know about the living world, but Mitakihara City was full of surprises. He didn't know what to make of the strange hollow he'd just fought--nor Mami Tomoe herself.

Hitsugaya had seen a lot of strange things over the course of his career in the Thirteen Court Guard Companies--especially since Ichigo Kurosaki and his friends had come after Rukia Kuchiki and dragged everyone in Soul Society in their wake. But he'd never encountered a hollow lacking an obvious mask before, let alone one capable of such deep distortions of reality, or who transformed into a strange jewel rather than dissolving into nothingness when sliced by Hyorinmaru.

What had Tomoe called them? "Grief seeds"? Even the name was ominous. Hitsugaya wasn't sure what exactly they were--that was a job for the scientists of Twelfth Division, thank goodness--but Tomoe seemed to think they were necessary for magic... and had all but stated outright that _she_ used them herself. The thought of someone harvesting hollows for their spiritual powers made Hitsugaya's skin crawl--but if someone out there _had_ made such a breakthrough, Twelfth Division--and by extension, the Captain-Commander--was going to want to know about it.

Regardless of the source of her powers, Tomoe possessed exceptionally strong spiritual powers. Her reiatsu signature marked her at the equivalent of a third or fourth-seat in the Thirteen Court Guards, which was impressive for any human, let alone a teenager. While Tomoe had made it abundantly clear she wouldn't tolerate any rivals, she'd also expressed an interest in an alliance with Hitsugaya, which meant... what, exactly?

Nothing good, that was certain. Loads and loads of paperwork, not to mention a long meeting with the Captain-Commander tonight. He had a headache just thinking about it.

Hitsugaya flash-stepped across the city with ease, entering the apartment commandeered as his base of operations through an open window. His gigai lay prone and still on the bed nearby; he slipped back into physical form, blinked a few times as he adjusted to his new body, and eased himself up and out of bed, rubbing at his eyes in annoyance as he stumbled down the hall in search of his lieutenant.

He didn't have far to go. Matsumoto Rangiku was sprawled on the couch in the living with a six-pack of beer and a bowl of popcorn in her lap, enraptured by some sort of fashion show on TV. "Captain!" she called with her mouth full, waving him over frantically. "I'm so glad you're here! Did you _see_ the colors on that gown--"

Hitsugaya sighed. Ever since he and Matsumoto had been dragged into the world of the living to infiltrate Ichigo Kurosaki's high school, the two of them were the Captain-Commander's first pick for other jobs too delicate or dangerous to entrust to unseated officers. Matsuomoto enjoyed these missions a little too much--taking advantage of the opportunities for drinking and entertainment while leaving her boss to do most of the actual work.

Still, given how devastated she had been after Ichimaru Gin's death a few months earlier, it was good to see her smile again, even for totally inane reasons. Hitsugaya himself had never understood how his cheerful, devil-may-care lieutenant had fallen for such a twisted snake in the first place. Love was a mystery he'd never understand and he was glad of it.

At least this time he was spared Lieutenant Abarai's company, not to mention those two yahoos from the Eleventh Division. This was a scouting mission favoring stealth and observation, not beating their adversaries into submission. Hitsugaya wasn't sure how someone like Mami Tomoe would react to a trigger-happy fool like Madarame Ikkaku--and it was probably for the best he'd never find out.

He didn't bother to beat around the bush with his lieutenant now. "Move. I need to talk to the Captain-Commander."

"Aww, it was just getting to the good part!" she muttered, but she made room for him on the couch without further argument.

"Put that away," he ordered, gesturing to the beer and the popcorn bowl. Matsumoto sighed dramatically, downing her current beer in one last gulp before shoving the evidence behind the cushions and out of sight.

Hitsugaya squinted at the remote, and aimed it at the television, weaving his way through the channels until he found the one he was looking for. Using an ordinary human device to broadcast messages to and from Soul Society in real time instead of a massive kido machine that took up half the room might be Urahara Kisuke's most useful invention to date, but it meant dealing with that man's peculiar sense of humor when it came to labeling the buttons on the device that made it work.

He got through to the First Division officer on guard duty without incident, who passed the call to the Captain-Commander right away. Thirty seconds later, Hitsugaya and Matsumoto were greeted by the scarred and wrinkled face of Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto staring through the TV at them.

"Report, Captain Hitsugaya," the captain of the First Division and the leader of the Thirteen Court Guardian Divisions said simply, tapping his walking stick on the ground before him.

Hitsugaya did, recounting his experience with the strange hollow as well as the entirety of his bizarre conversation afterwards with Mami Tomoe. From the way Matsumoto was squirming on the couch beside him, she was dying to interject, but somehow managed to hold her tongue. Yamamoto himself said nothing when Hitsugaya showed him the Grief Seed, but it was clear from the set of his jaw that he, too, found it extremely troubling.

"I agree with your assessment of the situation, Captain Hitsugaya," the Captain-Commander said at last. "You and your lieutenant are to continue your investigations in Mitakihara City. Learn what you can from Mami Tomoe while revealing as little information as possible about yourself and Soul Society at large. See that Twelfth Division arranges an immediate pick-up of the so-called 'grief seed' so they can begin their analyses."

Hitsugaya nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Very good," Yamamoto said. "Keep me informed as the situation develops." He disappeared into a mass of crackling static as he broke the connection.

"Oh- _ho_ , Captain," Matsumoto said, grabbing Hitsugaya's arm with one hand, while she rummaged behind the couch cushions to retrieve her pocorn. "You didn't tell me you met a _girl_ out there. What's Kurosaki's little sister going to say when she finds out she's got competition--"

Hitsugaya flushed. Leave it to Matsumoto to have her mind permanently fixed in the gutter. "That's none of your business!" he snapped. There was nothing going on between him and Karin Kurosaki, not that Matsumoto would ever believe him.

"Yes, I met a girl," he continued wearily, in a futile effort to ward off Matsumoto's teasing. "You would have, too, if you had bothered to go out and patrol with me instead of lazing around here watching TV."

Matsumoto waved the remote at him like an Academy lecturer. "You need to relax and learn to enjoy life, Captain. You don't have to go out and do everything yourself. Sometimes, the world come to you."

"Yeah, you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?"

She cracked open another beer can and downed its contents in one massive swallow, sighing happily as she turned back to the channel with the fashion show. "Of course. _I'm_ going to have a good time, even if you won't."

Hitsugaya sighed and left her to it.

***

New neighbors had moved into the apartment directly above Mami's earlier in the week, and they were _loud_. Stomping footsteps, thudding bass, and muffled screaming she hoped was the TV continued late at night (or early in the morning, depending on your perspective) for hours at time. Even though Mami didn't get back to her apartment until almost midnight, she couldn't sleep from all the noise, lying in bed twitching as she struggled to relax.

Finally, she couldn't stand it any longer. Throwing a robe over her pajamas and sliding her feet into her shoes, she padded up the stairs to the offending apartment and knocked loudly on the door.

Nothing happened. The thumping music continued on--maybe they couldn't hear her over the noise. Mami tried again. "Hello?" she called. "Anyone home?"

She was rewarded thirty seconds later by a welcome creak as the door slid open. A short figure poked its head out of the shadows. "Yeah?" it said, the voice oddly familiar over the pulsing beat of the music emanating from inside.

For a moment, Mami couldn't place where she might have met them before. Then the head slipped into the light from the hallway and the spiky ice-blonde hair and grim-faced hauteur abruptly registered. Her new obnoxious new neighbor was none other than Hitsugaya, the strange magical girl from earlier in the day!

The polite but firm ultimatum Mami had been rehearsing for the last two hours evaporated in a heartbeat. All she could go was gape at Hitsugaya in shock, her mouth flapping like a stunned fish, while she recovered her wits. Her only consolation was that from Hitsugaya's stunned expression, the surprise was mutual.

"What are _you_ doing here?" both of them said at once.

"Who is it, captain?" a slurred voice called from behind Hitsugaya. "We've got a visitor--?"

A tall, orange-haired woman--Hitsugaya's mother?--staggered forward into view as she pressed against Hitsugaya's back, her ample breasts spilled out of her partially buttoned shirt. From her slurred words, apparent inability to walk fully upright--not to mention the beer can clutched tightly in her hand--she was extremely drunk.

Light dawned in the strange woman's eyes as she stared first at Mami and then down at Hitsugaya with growing realization. " _Ohhh_ , Captain, is that your _girlfriend_ \--?" she chortled, slapping her knees in delight as she doubled over. She laughed so hard she had to clutch the door frame to keep from falling, but dropped her beer can in the process, spilling the pungent, sticky liquid across the floor and into the hallway as Hitsugaya stepped out of the way in disgust.

 _Captain? Girlfriend?_ Mami thought in bewilderment. Suddenly, all the little pieces that didn't add up clicked into place, and she cursed herself for a fool for missing the obvious.

The deep voice, the masculine pronouns, the odd hair, even the unusual name--this was no magical girl and never had been. Hitsugaya was very much a magical _boy_ \--and that was even more startling than the discovery that he was living in the apartment upstairs with the one-woman party animal disturbing Mami's sleep for the last week.

Hitsugaya's eyes flashed as his temper boiled over. "NO!" he shouted as he slammed the door in the orange-haired woman's face with more force than was strictly necessary--leaving him alone in the hallways with Mami.

For a long moment, all they could do was stare at each other. The only sound was the distant thudding bass from inside the apartment, thankfully muffled again by the door. Mami was acutely aware of how uncool she looked--a plaid bathrobe wrapped over her fuzzy pastel pajamas, her hair spilling flat down her back instead of in her usual twisting pigtails. There was no way Hitsugaya could respect her after seeing her like _this_ \--

"Is now a bad time?" Mami managed with a shaky smile, determined to make the best of a bad situation.

"It's fine," Hitsugaya said, though it clearly wasn't. He glanced around the hallway as if expecting more unwelcome visitors to drop by at any moment."Maybe we can find somewhere private to talk?"

Mami brightened. "I know just the place."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The witch Hitsugaya fights is based on the Vincent van Gogh painting _The Starry Night_. 
> 
> According to her PMMM wiki entry, Mami is half-Japanese. I've assumed she has one Italian parent, given her fondness for the language. 
> 
> Part of Mami's initial confusion around Hitsugaya's gender is that the character is voiced by a woman in the Japanese version of the anime but uses masculine pronouns ("ore"). Coupled with his bishonen appearance and the fact she's never met a "magical boy," it's completely understandable under the circumstances.


	2. Chapter 2

"Wow," Hitsugaya said as he took in Tomoe's apartment. "It's so _big_. You live here all by yourself?"

"My parents died in a car accident a year and a half ago," Tomoe said, ducking her head as she busied herself with the tea things in the kitchen. Even in a robe and pajamas, she carried herself with a remarkable poise once she'd recovered from the shock of their unexpected reunion.

Hitsugaya wished her could say the same. He was still reeling from the knock on the door, and she was the last person he expected as a neighbor. He almost hadn't recognized her with her hair down--no doubt Matsumoto would be after her for whatever technique she used to achieve that gravity-defying pigtail effect from earlier. This new revelation about Tomoe's absent family didn't do anything to ease the awkwardness.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Hitsugaya managed after a moment, uncertain how to lighten the mood. He settled for picking at the slice of cake Tomoe had offered him instead. He usually didn't care for sweets, but in this case, he was all too glad to make an exception.

What was meant to be mere politeness turned into genuine appreciation. "This is _delicious_ ," he said, falling to it with gusto.

"Thank you, I made it myself," Tomoe said. She brought the kettle over from the kitchen to the low table in the living room and poured them each a cup of tea. "It's not often I have the opportunity to share with anyone."

 _She doesn't have many friends, then,_ Hitsugaya noted, though he was careful not to voice that particular observation out loud. Even if he wasn't under orders to learn as much as he could from this girl, he would have refrained from hurting her feelings by speaking the truth too baldly.

"Well, then, I'm honored," he said instead, raising his fork in salute.

"T-thanks." She blushed and stared at her hands for a second before the perky cheerfulness returned. "So," she said after a moment. "That was your... mother... upstairs?"

"Aunt," Hitsugaya lied, though his head shake in disgust was genuine. "Please excuse her behavior. She never got over my parents' death"--Tomoe would sympathize with that--"and she's the only family I have left. She's very immature and doesn't always act appropriately for her age."

There was a pause as Tomoe struggled for a polite response. "That must be very difficult."

Hitsugaya snorted. " _That's_ an understatement." He liked Matsumoto--he wouldn't have kept her on as his lieutenant if he didn't--but there was no question she was a terrible roommate.

Tomoe was still watching him closely. "Why does she call you 'captain'?" she asked.

Hitsugaya had spent the last several minutes racking his brains for the best way to explain that particular faux pas. "It's a nickname. A joke. She thinks it's really funny."

The irony didn't escape him. Normally, he spent so much time trying to get people to address him by his title -- only to now find himself in a situation where said title would only drawn unwelcome attention.

"Oh," Tomoe said.

Awkward silence fell. Hitsugaya racked his brains trying to figure out a subtle way to bring up their earlier encounter, but Tomoe beat him to it.

"You know I've never met a boy who could use magic before. I thought Kyubey only made contracts with girls, but clearly he must have made an exception for you."

"Who is Kyubey?" The words slipped out of Hitsugaya's mouth without conscious thought.

Tomoe frowned. Whatever she'd expected him to say, that wasn't it. "How do you not know Kyubey? He's the one with whom we make the contract to become magical girls and fight witches. How else would you acquire a soul gem?"

"Soul gem?"

Nothing Tomoe was saying made any sense. That wasn't how shinigami powers _worked_. Why would they need contracts for anything?

If Hitsugaya was confused, Tomoe was absolutely bewildered. "You don't have a soul gem?" she repeated. "But then how--?"

She raised her left hand, and pointed to the ring on the third finger--a golden band with a gleaming amber jewel. She drew her right hand over the stone and closed her eyes--and with a flourish of light, the ring transformed into a glowing egg-shaped stone wrapped with golden bands nestled securely on her cupped palms.

" _This_ is a soul gem," she said as Hitsugaya stared at her in shock. "How did you summon your sword without one?"

Hitsugaya laughed, relieved to be back on solid ground. "My zanpakuto is a part of me, and appears when I will it. No jewelry required." Hyorinmaru was naturally suppressed when he was in a gigai with enhanced power limiters, but in a pinch he could manually release the seals enough for a summoning without abandoning the gigai.

"I don't understand," Tomoe said, clearly as upset as he was by this upheaval in her world. "How is that even _possible_?"

"I don't know," Hitsugaya said honestly. "I didn't know there were any alternatives until now. It's not something I've ever really thought about. Maybe if I saw your magic in action, I'd be able to explain better."

Tomoe brightened visibly. "Okay! We can patrol together for witches tomorrow after school and I'll show you what I do."

"School?"

"Of course! Tomorrow--well, today, technically--is Friday! You don't think I'd be so irresponsible as to skip school, do you?"

It was all Hitsugaya could do to suppress the hysterical laughter that threatened to overwhelm him. Here he was, having tea in the middle of the night with a fifteen-year-old human girl with extremely strong spiritual powers, enough to casually take out hollows by herself--successfully enough that no shinigami hadn't needed to intervene for quite some time--and she was worried about _delinquency?_

But there was a lot more going on here in Mitakihara than anyone in Soul Society suspected. One way or another, Hitsugaya was determined to get to the bottom of it.

"You do go to school, right, Hitsugaya-san?" Tomoe continued. "Are you at the elementary school here? You must not be at Mitakihara Middle School or else I would have seen you when you transferred--."

" _Actually_ , I'm in high-school," he said, stung by her unwitting assumption about his age. Technically, it wasn't a lie-- he'd gone to more of Kurosaki's classes at Karakura High than he cared to think about as part of his cover there. "But I'm home schooled--correspondence courses, you know? It's more convenient that way if something dangerous comes up--I can deal with it right away instead of waiting or making excuses for my absences."

"Oh. That makes sense," Tomoe said. She tried and failed to stifle a yawn. "Wish I could do that, but no--"

"Sorry for keeping you up," Hitsugaya said, recognizing the cue to leave. "I'll tell Matsu--Aunt Rangiku to settle down so you can get some sleep." With any luck, she would have already have passed out by the time he got back and save him the trouble of an argument.

Tomoe eyed him with an odd mix of pity and envy. "Is she always like that?"

"Unfortunately," Hitsugaya said. "You get used to it after a while."

"Oh." There was another awkward pause. "I'm--I'm actually really glad to see you again," she said at last. "I wasn't sure if you'd come back after what I said earlier. I was hoping we could work together--it's been a while since I met anyone else who could use magic--"

"Well, I'll meet you after school tomorrow, and you can give me the tour," he said. "Let's meet outside the front entrance at three o'clock, right?"

"Of course! See you tomorrow, Hitsugaya-san."

"Good night, Tomoe-san. Sleep well." He rose to his feet. "Thanks again for the tea and cake."

Tomoe rewarded him with a luminous smile as he departed.

***

Matsumoto stumbled into the kitchen the next morning with an icepack on her head, bleating about her well-earned hangover. Too bad it wasn't enough to distract her from her obsession with Hitsugaya's personal life. "Hiya, Captain. How was your _date_ last night?"

"It wasn't a date," Hitsugaya said shortly.

"I _told_ you the universe would come to you if you waited for it," Matusomoto said with a wink. "Just like that, mystery girl found! So what's the plan for the day?"

Hitsugaya sighed. "Tomoe-san and I are meeting later this afternoon for reconnaissance on the hollow situation here."

Matsumoto's mouth quirked. "Ohhh-ho-ho, Captain's going on _another_ _date_ \--"

"It's not a date," he said wearily, though without any real heat--he knew a lost cause when he saw one. He handed her the Grief Seed he'd stowed in his sleeve the day before. "A Twelfth Division representative will be coming by later today to collect this for analysis, per the Captain-Commander's orders. Stay here and wait for him, will you?"

"Of course, Captain," Matsuomoto said, tossing in a salute with her icepack as she accepted the spiky little globe. "Will do. What _is_ this thing, anyway?" she added, rolling the dark jewel across her palm.

"I don't know," Hitsugaya admitted. "But Tomoe-san says they come from these strange hollows here, so it may well be the key to unlocking whatever mystery is going on here. Hopefully, I'll know more later today."

"Matsumoto grinned. "You two have fun on your _date,_ now. Don't do anything I wouldn't do--"

"It's not a--oh, never mind," Hitsugaya said, and stalked off in disgust.

***

Mami spend the entire day unable to concentrate on her schoolwork. Part of it was the lack of sleep from the night before, yes, but mostly she couldn't stop thinking about Hitsugaya. Who was he? Why was he here? How could he fight witches without a contract from Kyubey? And--perhaps the most important question of all--was he going to stick around in her territory and fight at her side? Would they be allies or enemies?

Where _was_ Kyubey, anyway? Surely he would explain everything if only Mami could find him. It wasn't like him to be away for so long; he usually stopped by every few days to safely dispose of Grief Seeds, even if he didn't linger. So the fact that she hadn't seen him was unsettling, even though he probably had a good reason for it...

When the final bell rang for the day, Mami burst out of school with uncharacteristic haste. She scanned the courtyard in front of the building, but there was no sign of Hitsugaya anywhere. For a moment, she panicked, wondering if she'd imagined the whole thing--only to catch sight of him slouching against the trunk of a nearby tree. His clothes were casual but practical-- khakhi pants and a black t-shirt--with no sign of shihakusho, sword, or anything out of the ordinary.

"Hitsugaya-san!" Mami called in delight as she ran up to him. "You came!"

"Of course," he said, looking up at her with those bright bright blue eyes that sent a shiver running through her spine. "I spent the morning patrolling but didn't find anything. Now that you're here, maybe we'll see some action."

Mami nodded and held up her ring like a compass. "Of course! Let's go!"

***

Tomoe's sleepless night appeared to have no impact on her energy today, Hitsugaya noted. Her hair was perfectly coiffed in its golden ringlets, her school uniform was immaculately in place, and she radiated an impressively cheerful optimism that never faltered in the slightest. Guided by her pulsing soul gem, she led the way without hesitation as Hitsugaya trailed along behind her.

Even so, it took them two hours to find the witch tucked away outside a train station on the far end of town. It was perfectly camouflaged in the darkness--the only sign of its presence was a slight uptick in reiatsu and the faint flickering that marked a doorway to an entirely different dimension--its "labyrinth". Were it not for Tomoe and her soul gem, he might never have noticed it.

What he _did_ notice were the voices in the back of his mind, urging him towards the gate. At first they were so faint he might have thought he imagined it, but they grew louder and louder as he approached. The witch was calling out to its potential victims, alternating between grim despair at this broken, flawed world and the promise of relief if only they would come closer and see the truth themselves--

"Don't worry, there's nothing to be afraid of," Tomoe said, turning back long enough to urge him forward into the trap. 

"I'm not--" Hitsugaya started in annoyance. Whatever else he meant to say was lost as he stepped from the edge of the platform into a giant coral reef decked out in psychedelic colors. "This is a _witch?_ " he managed when he'd recovered his wits.

"Uh-huh," Tomoe said, scanning their surroundings with interest. A giant clownfish with eerily human eyes swished past them, followed by a school of tiny paper fish that shimmered and rippled as they darted by. The air was a hazy blue mist reminiscent of sunlight passing through shallow water--but as far as Hitsugaya could tell, it was an optical illusion; there was no liquid whatsoever.

_But if that's true, then how do the fish stay up?_

"It's best not to think too hard about this place," Tomoe said, as if sensing his thoughts. "If you apply _logic_ , then you're accepting it as real, which makes you easy prey for the witch. You have to reassert the world as you truly know it to be"--she tapped the coral closest to her, and it snapped from bright, bold smears of color to sharp and focused texture like a photograph--"or else you've already lost."

"If you say so," Hitsugaya said, eyeing the transfigured coral dubiously. "What happens now?"

"Now we look for the witch. Come on!"

They walked for what felt like hours across the churning sea floor, the shadows of increasingly large fish passing overhead as anemones and coral polyps swayed around them. Crabs scuttled sideways on the sand, dodging in between the colorful sea slugs and shells burrowing into the shifting ground. Hundred-limbed starfish and pointed urchins battled for dominance in the distance and glowing green eyes stared unblinking from shadowy crevices within the rocks. Hitsugaya's skin crawled from the sensation of being watched, yet none of the strange creatures attacked, content for the interlopers to keep moving inwards.

This time, the witch's stronghold wasn't a castle. It was the ruins of a old-fashioned galleon filled with treasure, ripped straight from one of the pirate movies on TV that Karin Kurosaki obsessed over. From the ominous uptick in reiatsu, the witch was lurking somewhere nearby, but the shipwreck itself looked harmless enough: a scattering of seashells amidst the golden coins and gleaming jewels spilling from the rusted cases on the deck.

"Okay, then! Time to get to work!" Tomoe said cheerfully.

Light flared from the yellow gem on her finger as she raised her hand, palm stretched outward towards the ship. Lilies sprang up around her feet as she kicked in a circle and raised both hands above her head. A feathered beret with golden hair ornament in the shape of a daisy popped into existence on her head--followed seconds later by a red ribbon wrapping around her torso, which itself became a corset. The rest of her school uniform was replaced by an entirely different outfit: a puffy, cream-colored shirt and a golden skirt, accented with dark stockings, black boots, and fingerless gloves.

Matsumoto would have declared the whole ensemble "cute". Hitsugaya, less versed in the fashions of the living, could only gape like an idiot.

That... wasn't how magic was supposed to work, was it?

The effect of Mami's transformation on their surroundings was electric; evidently the witch had decided they were a potential threat. The whispers became a roar of pure rage as an army of iridescent crabs lumbered forward towards them, their razor-sharp pincers waving wildly as they charged.

Tomoe turned back to wink at him. "Don't worry, Hitsugaya-san, I'm on it!" she called before bounding towards the shipwreck with remarkable speed.

Rifles rained down around her in a circle as she approached. Tomoe grabbed the nearest one and fired at the nearest crab. It exploded with a scream, but she was already tossing the weapon aside to grab the next one and keep shooting. Hitsugaya noticed the discarded rifle vanished from existence as soon as it left her hand, though he couldn't detect how she was doing it.

The crab army didn't stop and neither did Tomoe. She kept shooting, pausing only now and then to smack any crustaceans that ventured too close with a spent rifle before moving on to more distant targets in a beautiful, deadly dance. She seemed to thrive on having an audience, and was scrupulously careful to limit any blows in his direction. Once, she used an arching ribbon to instantly construct an entire kido barrier to block the attacks at Hitsugaya--all without an obvious incantation. How was that even _possible_? 

Hitsugaya stared. Based on her reiatsu from the day before, he'd pegged Tomoe as roughly fourth-seat level--but she was definitely closer to third, fighting with an exuberant confidence in a style he had never, ever seen before in all his days with the shinigami. Even a captain like himself would do well to tread cautiously when fighting her, given how little he understood of her powers.

With a groan, the shipwreck lurched and shifted, the treasure falling away as something stirred from beneath the sands. A giant scallop shell, three times Tomoe's size, rose into the air, its shell ringed by rows of gleaming blue eyes--all of them focused on her with obvious menace. _That must be the witch,_ Hitsugaya thought absurdly, as the reiatsu flare spiked to its highest levels yet. Flapping its shell open and closed to expose razor-sharp teeth within, the scallop-witch roared in annoyance, shooting jets of water from its mouth--

Tomoe easily dodged the blows and kept firing, swinging around the giant scallop to stay in its blind spot as much as possible. She waved to Hitsugaya, but didn't break stride as even more rifles appeared and vanished in a steady stream of ribbons and bullets. As with the crabs, she used spent rifles to block her opponent's blows, slamming the water jets harmlessly away.

"Don't worry, Hitsugaya-san, I'm almost done," she called. "I don't want to keep you waiting any longer than necessary--"

She tossed the last rifle aside and leaped into the air, brandishing a massive golden ribbon as she fell. It flickered and solidified into the largest gun Hitsugaya had ever seen, so big it dwarf both the girl _and_ her giant seashell opponent. " _TIRO FINALE_!" Tomoe cried, as she swung the giant weapon down at the witch and pulled the trigger.

The witch exploded in a burst of light, and collapsed to the ground in the wreckage of its treasure-hoard, the dark pearl of a Grief Seed silhouetted against the backdrop of golden coins. Even as Tomoe landed neatly on her feet, the coral reef shimmered and vanished, leaving her and Hitsugaya standing on the empty platform back in the real world. Nothing remained of the witch save the Grief Seed, rolling with a clatter across the pockmarked floor of the station. 

Without a word, Tomoe transformed back to her school uniform, and retrieved the Grief Seed.

"That was _amazing_ ," Hitsugaya said when he finally pulled himself together. He's never seen anything like it before. No doubt Mayuri Kurotsuchi would love to get his hands on her to find out just how she did it--

And, Hitsugaya realized with a start, that was exactly why Soul Society wasn't going to find out about this. Kurotsuchi might be a captain of the Thirteen Court Guardians---and therefore, for better or worse, on their side--but that didn't make the man or his methods any less reprehensible. No way was he going to let that monster experiment on her--

Tomoe blushed and put a hand up to her mouth at Hitsugaya's compliment, as she laughed nervously. "Oh, I'm so glad you like it! The other magical girls I've met think it's silly to call out my attacks like that, but I _do_ love it so. But I guess you do the same thing--your final attack is 'Hyorinmaru' or something like that, right?"

"Hyorinmaru isn't an attack, it's the name of my zanpakuto--my sword," Hitsugaya said, surprised that she remembered that particular detail. "I have a release phrase that helps me summon him, but it's a very different kind of magic from what you just did."

"I know, you don't have a soul gem--" Tomoe started. "Wait. Did you say 'him'? Your zanpakuto is a _person_?"

Hitsugaya blinked. "Oh, yes, Hyorinmaru is his own person. He's--a part of me, you might say."

Even if he wasn't under strict orders from the Captain-Commander to reveal as little information about the shinigami as possible, Hitsugaya would have hedged. It wasn't that he didn't trust Tomoe, it was her connection to the mysterious Kyubey that gave him pause. Even if Tomoe herself meant no harm, she couldn't inadvertently let slip what she didn't know.

Time to change the subject. He was, after all, here for information about _her_. "Are witches always like this?"

"More or less," Tomoe said, examining her prize. Unlike the sharp, spiky globe from yesterday, this one was completely black and opaque, with an iridescent, pearl-like sheen to it. Considering that she'd extracted it from the heart of a giant clam, perhaps it really _was_ a pearl. "Witches are born from curses and despair. They're responsible for a large number of unexplained murders and suicides. A true witch always has a Grief Seed inside."

The skin on the back of Hitsugaya's neck prickled. Hollows were predators, but they usually stuck to errant Pluses--or, if they were particularly daring, spiritually aware humans. But a hollow that primarily targeted the living--

_I'm missing something. Something important. Something big._

"What do you do with them?" Hitsugaya asked, struggling to make sense of it all.

"I use them to purify _my_ soul gem," Tomoe said. She set the soul gem side by side with the Grief Seed on her palm to demonstrate. "See this dark stain running through one side? That's the corruption that comes from using my magic. If my soul gem gets too dark, I'll be unable to fight. So I try to keep it as clear and in good condition as possible."

She lightly tapped the pearl with her soul gem. With a soft hiss, a cloud of darkness leached from Mami's gem into the pearl, leaving the former gleaming and clear again, its inner light undimmed.

"See how easy it is?" Tomoe said brightly. "Now this Grief Seed is full and I can't use it anymore, so the next step is to seal it so it doesn't transform back into a witch again."

"How do you _that_?" he asked, increasingly numb as the revelations piled up.

"Oh, I just give them to Kyubey and he takes care of them. It's part of his job. But he hasn't been around recently--I hope he's okay...."

Somehow his voice remained steady and calm, with no hint of his inner turmoil. "So this--thing--is just a ticking time bomb before it re-spawns?"

"Yes," Tomoe said simply. She thought for a moment, and added, "You should probably give the one I gave you yesterday back to me if you're not going to use it. I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt."

Hitsugaya stared at her in mounting horror. How could he explain he'd given it away without blowing his cover? What a nightmare.

Worse yet: Tomoe seemed like an intelligent person--did she understand the implications of what she was saying, that magical girls like her _needed_ the witches in order to exist? Had she never questioned the framework underlying her entire existence?

_I have to tell Soul Society._

Then again--if Tomoe was right, and the Grief Seeds really _did_ regenerate, Twelfth Division would find out for themselves soon enough. Hell, Kurotsuchi might even enjoy having a full-grown witch on his hands to analyze and dissect, now that Hitsugaya thought about it. 

"Let me try something," he said as an idea occurred to him. He summoned Hyorimaru--still in sealed form--and drew the zanpakuto out of its scabbard. Taking the Grief Seed from Tomoe's palm, he held it up in the air and studied it intently for a long moment before he tapped it with the sword hilt as if performing a soul burial.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the Grief Seed glowed blue and vanished with a loud pop, and they both jumped.

"What--what just happened--" Tomoe gasped. "What did you _do_ \--"

"Soul burial," Hitsugaya said, dazed in spite of himself. He hadn't actually expected his crazy idea to actually work. "The witch has been purified by my powers and won't harm anyone now. Just like an ordinary hollow--"

He stopped short. _Witches are corrupted human souls,_ _just like ordinary hollows. But why do they only form in Mitakihara? Why Grief Seeds in lieu of a mask?  
_

Tomoe clapped her hands in delight, oblivious to Hitsugaya's rising concern. "Excellent! You can fill in for Kyubey until he gets back."

"Yeah," Hitsugaya said, shoving his misgivings away until he could make a formal report to Soul Society with this new information and the highly disturbing implications. "I guess I will."


	3. Chapter 3

It was lucky that Hitsugaya was here in Mitakihara now to purify Grief Seeds with his strange magic; weeks passed and there was no sign Kyubey would ever return. Mami worried about him, but Kyubey had left no clues to his whereabouts and she had no idea where to start. She scoured her territory for him while on patrol, but she couldn't leave Mitakihara unprotected to search beyond its borders, even with Hitsugaya around to cover for her. The witches were relentless and so were her responsibilities--there was no end in sight.

In the meantime, she was glad of Hitsugaya's company, and they grew close enough that their conversation gradually shifted to a much more casual tone over time. He didn't correct her when she slipped and called him "Hitsugaya-kun," though she couldn't work up the courage to use his first name when he finally shared it with her. Hitsugaya was far more formal than she was--even in the heat of battle, Mami remained a polite and distant "Tomoe-san" to him.

They made a good team--Mami's work ethic balancing nicely with Hitsugaya's dogged persistence. Despite his natural talent, he pushed himself harder than anyone else she had ever seen, constantly on patrol and rarely taking breaks. He was obsessed with witches, and he never stopped asking questions about them--how they formed, where they came from, and why. Mami did the best she could to help, but she was far more concerned with the more practical matter of eliminating and containing them without casualties.

"It's my sworn duty to protect ordinary people from the souls of the corrupted dead," he explained when she asked him why it mattered so much to him. "We call them 'hollows' because they have no heart. But here in Mitakihara there are no hollows, only witches and I don't know why. I think the witches may be consuming them as they form, but I have no proof-- _yet_ \--"

They vaulted through construction sites and back alleys and dodged cars and drunks and confused prostitutes in the red light district as they combed the city for witches each night, guarding each other's backs as they fought side by side within the labyrinths. Each witch was its own unique challenge, with no two alike, but with Hitsugaya by her side, Mami fought better than she ever had, her powers surging with her growing confidence.

For the first time since becoming a magical girl, she wasn't alone. It wasn't the team of magical girls she had envisioned when she'd first contracted with Kyubey, before her illusions about working with others had been thoroughly crushed. It was even better.

Hitsugaya was a much more competent partner than any of the girls she'd met in the early days, calm and cool-headed in a manner that belied his youth. She could tell him things she could never tell anyone else--how she would have died in the car accident that killed her parents if she hadn't met Kyubey, or how much witches scared her sometimes--and he would understand and sympathize. More than once, Mami wondered if he was older than he looked; certainly, she'd never met such a mature teenager before, even if he looked like he belonged in elementary school.

And while she might not understand the source of his magic, or how it worked, she never had to worry about competing with him for Grief Seeds. They could help each other freely, without dividing all-too-scarce resources between them.

_I'm so happy._

Despite the awkward circumstances surrounding their first meeting, Mami also grew close to Hitsugaya's aunt Rangiku, especially once the older woman toned down her late-night carousing. It was an inversion of the natural order for a child to call an adult by their first name, but Rangiku complained that "Matsumoto-san" made her feel old and decrepit, so there was no help for it.

Rangiku was the polar opposite of her nephew when it came to temperament: open and gregarious, with a ribald sense of humor that not even Hitsugaya's iciest stares could halt. To Mami's astonishment, Rangiku not only knew about Hitsugaya's magic but could even perform a bit of it herself--though she preferred shopping, watching TV, and drinking copious quantities of alcohol over fighting witches and never tagged along on their hunts. She claimed she was hard at work at an equally important job, but Mami could never figure out what precisely that entailed. Rangiku seemed to shun all the things that respectable adults were supposed to do in favor of entertaining herself, and it was impossible to imagine her in anything approaching professional business attire.

Rangiku was nothing like Mami's mother, but she managed to slip seamlessly into Mami's life as if she were the big sister Mami had never had. She was always badgering Mami to marathon ridiculous soap operas, braid her hair, and other things that girls with older sisters always did with their onee-san on TV. On no fewer than three occasions, she abducted Mami and Hitsugaya after school to buy cute outfits for Mami while Hitsugaya huffed in disgust and dragged an increasingly large quantity of packages in their wake.

Though he was always complimentary of her cooking, it quickly became clear that Hitsugaya didn't care much for sweets. Mami switched to savory crepes and croissants for their celebratory post-mission teas, served alongside with salted meats and seaweed crackers. They sat on the floor in Hitsugaya's apartment, narrating the day's battles to an enthusiastic Rangiku, who amused herself by stealing food off Hitsugaya's plate whenever his back was turned.

Even her classmates' good-natured teasing about her "elementary school boyfriend"--or Rangiku's far more suggestive remarks--couldn't dim Mami's spirits. Hitsugaya, however, took them far too seriously, which only made his aunt double down harder in her teasing unless Mami could distract them both long enough to change the subject.

Every afternoon, Hitsugaya met Mami outside the middle school and they roamed the city on the never-ending search for witches. Evenings found them perched on lampposts or sprawled along the riverbank, watching the wind turbines swirl in the distance as the sun set low and red on the horizon, on the lookout for a fresh insurgence. They rarely spoke on patrol, a single look or glance conveying volumes.

_I'm so happy._

***

Life in Mitakihara settled into a comfortable routine, but Hitsugaya was still no closer to solving the mystery behind the witches. That changed the day Tomoe emerged from the bizarre glass middle school building with a white stuffed animal the size of a large rat draped around her neck. Like a mythical kitsune, it sported a massive fluffy tail, along with an extra set of furry tassels emerging from its cat-like ears, each ringed by a golden hoop that defied the conventional laws of physics even more flagrantly than Tomoe's pigtails. No one but Hitsugaya seemed to notice, which made the whole spectacle even more surreal.

"Hitsugaya-san!" Tomoe called as she bounded over to their meeting place, bubbling with excitement. The creature shifted on her shoulder and Hitsugaya realized with a start that what he'd mistaken for an inanimate object was actually alive. "Guess what! Kyubey returned!"

Hitsugaya stared. _This_ was Kyubey? Granted, he'd never bothered to ask Tomoe for details, but he'd always assumed Kyubey was... a person, not... whatever the hell this thing was.

His confusion must have shown on his face because Tomoe drew up short, realizing her faux pas. "Ah, yes, I forget you two haven't met each other yet. Kyubey, this is Toushirou Hitsugaya-san, the boy I was telling you about, who's been helping me with all the witches. Hitsugaya-san, this is my dear friend Kyubey, the one who allowed me to become a magical girl in the first place--"

Kyubey drew itself to regard Hitsugaya with interest. Its lips, puckered in a smile-like moue, never moved, and its voice when it "spoke" in Hitsugaya's head, was almost childlike in its perkiness. _Nice to meet you, Toushirou Hitsugaya. It's too bad you're not a girl, or I would offer you a contract; it's very rare to meet a boy with your abilities. Mami says you've been very helpful while I've been away._

"That's right!" Mami agreed cheerfully, rubbing Kyubey's head with obvious affection. "I don't know what I would have done without Hitsugaya-san purifying the Grief Seeds to keep them from hurting people while you were away!"

Now Hitsugaya had Kyubey's full attention, which was somehow even more unnerving. The way the red eyes refused to blink was remarkably uncanny. Its tone didn't change, but its words were somehow ominous. _Oh? Purifying Grief Seeds? How...interesting._

The hair on the back of Hitsugaya's neck stood on end as all of his senses registered danger. _It knows what I am. It *knows* I'm a shinigami._ There was no reason it _should_ know that-- he hadn't even told Tomoe the truth about himself--but somehow this unearthly creature _knew_.

It was abundantly clear that Hitsugaya's presence here in Mitakihara was a threat to whatever Kyubey's game was with these so-called contracts he'd made with Mami and other girls. And it all had to do with usurping Kyubey's role of collecting Grief Seeds and purifying them instead of--what?

Awkward silence fell. Hitsugaya and Kyubey stared at each other as Tomoe babbled on, oblivious to the underlying hostility.

 _Well, Mami Tomoe, I can see you've had no shortage of adventures since I've been away,_ Kyubey said at last. Satisified its message had been delivered, it slipped from her shoulder onto the ground with feline grace. _Nice to meet you, Toushirou Hitsugaya. I'm sure we'll get to know each other much better in the future since we're both such good friends with Mami_.

Tomoe waved as the creature loped away, vanishing into the adjacent shrubbery. Hitsugaya was still too stunned to respond, breathing heavily as he struggled to calm his racing heart.

"Hitsugaya-san? Are you all right?" Tomoe said, turning to him with obvious concern.

He ignored the question. "Where did that _thing_ come from?" he said through gritted teeth.

Tomoe frowned, disconcerted by his sudden rudeness. "He's not an 'thing,' he's a friend," she corrected, crossing her arms over her chest. "He's helped me quite a bit. He even saved my life once!"

In Hitsugaya's admittedly biased opinion, _Tomoe_ had saved her own life by wishing to survive the car accident that had killed her parents; Kyubey's actual motives were suspect. But there was no point in arguing with her now--she had closed herself off and he'd have to find more concrete evidence than his own private suspicions if he hoped to convince her.

Hitsugaya shrugged, doing his best to dispel the mounting tension. "Come on, let's go hunt witches," he said, and set off in the opposite direction from Kyubey with Tomoe trailing in his wake.

_The Captain-Commander isn't going to like this one bit._

***

Sometimes Hitsugaya _hated_ being right.

"What do you mean, you're recalling us?" he demanded, staring at Yamamoto's wrinkled face on the screen with stunned horror.

Hitsugaya was not usually in the business of questioning his superior officers, but he was startled enough to forget himself in the heat of the moment. Either that or that upstart ryoka Ichigo Kurosaki was rubbing off on him after all. Kurosaki wouldn't just walk away and abandon his friends like that--how could a captain do any less?

Genryuusai Yamamoto's primary method for handling his subordinates' anger, honed by thousands of years as Captain-Commander, was to ignore it and soldier on. "That's correct, Captain Hitsugaya. It's clear from your most recent report that circumstances have changed with the arrival of this...Kyubey creature. You and Lieutenant Matsumoto are to return to Soul Society immediately."

"But--but--but--" Hitsugaya's mind raced desperately in search of a valid objection. "What do I tell Tomoe-san?"

Yamamoto raised a single bushy eyebrow. "Why would you need to tell that girl anything?"

"I just can't disappear without a trace! She's my _friend_ \--" Hitsugaya started.

In the back of his mind, Hyorinmaru growled softly in warning. Hitsugaya stopped short, wracking his brains in an attempt to salvage the situation.

"She'll ask questions if I disappear sir," he managed at last. "Maybe even try to investigate. I need to at least tell her _something_ so she doesn't come after us--"

This was technically a lie; Tomoe was too conscientious to ever leave her territory unprotected, but Yamamoto didn't know that. The last thing the Captain-Commander wanted was a spiritually powerful teenager with no particular allegiances to the existing command structure wandering around Soul Society in hot pursuit of a missing friend. Kurosaki and his lot had been bad enough on that front, and Soul Society was still reeling in their wake.

"Fine," the Captain-Commander barked. "I'll allow one last meeting with this Tomoe girl. But then you must return to Soul Society immediately for a briefing with the other captains. We cannot allow this...Kyubey creature... to continue to operate unchecked."

 _Then why are you recalling me?_ Hitsugaya wanted to scream. Instead, he bit his lip, trying to think. Whatever Twelfth Division had uncovered about the Grief Seeds must have been big if Kyubey's re-appearance had triggered _this_ reaction from Yamamoto. And it was a distinct possibility that Hitsugaya's presence here might endanger Tomoe if Kyubey decided she'd been compromised--

"Yes, Captain-Commander," he said at last, bowing in acknowledgement of his temporary victory.

The TV screen reverted to crackling static as Yamamoto broke the connection, leaving Hitsugaya along in the living room with his thoughts. The temperature of the room plummeted instantly as his temper broke, tiny flares of ice crystallizing around the screen.

"Captain?" Matsumoto called as he stalked past the kitchen, her breath steaming up in the sudden chill. "You okay there?"

"No," he said softly, gathering up his coat. "No, I'm not."

***

When Hitsugaya knocked on her door and asked to come in, Mami nodded, though she noticed he didn't meet her eyes. Instead of removing his shoes, he hovered in the genkan with one hand on the doorknob, as if poised for a quick getaway.

"Look, Tomoe-san, the last few months have been great," he began, raising his gaze to her face at last. "Aunt Rangiku and I have been--really happy here. You're doing such a wonderful job protecting Mitakihara from witches, but there are other towns out there that need our help." He cleared his throat. "Duty calls and it's time for us to move on."

Somehow she'd known what was coming the moment he set foot in the apartment. All the same, it was gut-wrenching to hear him say the words out loud, the shock catching in her throat as she struggled for words.

She'd never really gotten a chance to say good-bye to her parents. She'd poured herself into her magical girl duties after the funeral, fighting witches while struggling to live on her own and keep up her schoolwork. And now Hitsugaya was abandoning her, too. Moving on without her, to a place she couldn't follow. Kyubey was a wonderful companion, but it just wasn't the same--he wasn't _human_ \--

_Everybody leaves me. In the end, I'm alone, I'm alone, I'm alone, and I always will be--_

"No," she whispered, unable to bear the crushing weight spreading through her chest. _Hitsugaya-san, please,_ she wanted to beg. _This can't be true. This can't be happening. Stay here with me. Don't do this_.

"I'm sorry, Tomoe-san," Hitsugaya said, staring at the floor with that familiar icy stoicism she knew so well.

Mami sniffed, fighting back that tears threatening to fall at any moment. She was afraid she would lose her composure and utterly break down and she couldn't bear for Hitsugaya to see her like that. 

_He thinks I'm so strong, assured, capable. The veteran magical girl who can bear anything, beat anything, and always comes out with a smile on her face no matter what._ It was a lie, but it was a lie she clung to now when all else was lost. It was a lie that might still have the power to save her dignity, if nothing else. _Let his last memories of me be good ones, and not selfish ones--_

She glanced down at her hands and froze. A rippling black stain was spreading across the surface of her soul gem, the corruption spreading faster than she'd ever seen before. Mami clamped down on her fear and panic, knowing reflexively it would only make matters worse. _Nothing_ good was ever accomplished by panicking--

 _Calm. Stay calm. You can do this._ She wished she had an extra Grief Seed on hand for emergencies like this; she'd given the last one to Hitsugaya a few days ago and she was abnormally low on magic now. She'd smile and nod and say good-bye to him and get it over with--and then go out on patrol and find a witch, and that would fix everything--

It was harder than she thought to manage the first part. "G-good luck out there, Hitsugaya-san." Her voice quavered and she hated herself for showing weakness but there was no way to stop it. "T-thanks for everything. It was so good to know you--"

_I wish--  
_

To her utter embarrassment, a single tear rolled down her cheek. Even as she brought a hand up to roughly wipe it away, it fell, landing on her soul gem, which was now completely black--

***

Saying good-bye to Tomoe in person was the right thing to do--Hitsugaya would only hurt her more by if he abandoned Mitakihara without explanation. But the look of stunned betrayal on Tomoe's face when he broke the news sent slivers of glass deep into his heart, made worse by the knowledge there was nothing he could say or do to comfort her. None of his explanations would change the situation, and would only make the inevitable parting harder for her to bear it.

With his message delivered, it was time to retreat and give her the space she needed. Even as Tomoe stammered out a farewell, Hitsugaya turned to open the apartment door--only for her collapse to the ground, limp and broken like a puppet cut from its strings.

"Tomoe-san! Are you all right--?!"

Between one breath and the next, the apartment vanished, replaced by a dark cavern, the ceiling of which was covered with cut-out paper stars. The only other landmark was a wrought-iron gate covered with ivy and filigree, a single lantern flickering to one side above a sign labeled with illegible runes.

There was only one place he could possibly be. _A labyrinth? Here? How? *Why?*_

Even as he stared in shock, the gates opened and two giant girls in matching blue waitress uniforms complete with striped stockings, ruffled skirts, and lacy collars and aprons stepped forth. Their hair was an exaggerated beehive atop their heads, completely obscuring their eyes, yet the lack of vision didn't appear to bother them in the slightest. Each bore a tea tray laden with sweets and an exaggerated, cartoonish smile.

Familiars.

Hitsugaya still wasn't sure what to make of familiars after all this time. Were they the souls of the witch's human victims, forced to serve their killer after their deaths? Were they manifestations of the witch's own powers, capable of developing sentience of their own with sufficient spiritual energy to draw on? Why did some familiars spin off to form their own labyrinths indistinguishable from witches--and why did they lack Grief Seeds of their own?

In Hitsugaya's experience, familiars were indifferent at best and openly homicidal at worst. These two were neither, at least at first brush. They gestured to him to enter, calling in high-pitched voices that reminded him of Matsumoto after a few drinks.

No doubt it was a trap, but since he _wanted_ to confront the witch, he followed them inside into what looked like a child's bedroom, with toys and stuffed animals scattered everywhere across the floor. The walls and ceiling was bright and patterned, as if a quilt had exploded over everything. The one exception was the massive white table towering in the far corner, complete with two equally gargantuan chairs.

The familiars--sized to match the table--twittered to themselves as they set their trays down on the table and began assembling the tea things. When they'd completed their task, they knocked in unison on the closet door and gestured for Hitsugaya to approach. He did so warily, scanning the room for threats as he flash-stepped from the floor to the chair to the surface of the table and the disproportionately sized cups and saucers. There was a wardrobe door along the wall the far side of the table and he'd bet anything the witch was hidden inside--

As if on cue, the doors opened and a tiny figure, doll-like in proportions, stepped out onto the table. She was smaller than Hitsugaya, dressed in an electric blue frock, candy striped stockings, and a bright yellow bonnet inscribed with the same runes as the sign at the labyrinth entrance. A magenta price tag--the sort popular in the vintage shops and expensive boutiques Matsumoto preferred to frequent--dangled from the bonnet as if to imply a recent purchase. But there was no mistaking the distinctive reiatsu emanating from the creature--or the golden ribbons standing in for arms.

He was looking at Mami Tomoe. Or at least what was left of her.

But this witch wasn't angry, wasn't hostile at all. She was so _happy_ to see him, a smile plastered across her face as she extended her ribbons out to grab both of Hitsugaya's wrists and pull him towards her.

"Tomoe-san," Hitsugaya said, desperate to try and reach her. "Tomoe-san, is that you? Are you there?"

The witch cocked her head: up close, there was no visible face or mouth, only facsimiles formed from ribbons. Her legs were ribbons, too, he realized in horror. Her entire body was nothing but ribbons, all melded together in a vaguely humanoid configuration. Additional sets sprouted from her back in a halo of limbs as she ripped off a chunk of cake from a platter on the table and thrust it in her guest's face. 

Even if Hitsugaya had cared for sugar, eating anything under the circumstances would have turned his stomach. "Tomoe-san. Listen to me. Please. It's your friend Hitsugaya, don't you remember--"

That was a mistake. The ribbons around his wrists tightened as he spoke--others snaked around Hitsugaya's body, wrapping him in a dense cocoon. With an angry cry, the witch abandoned the cake and began reeling him, buzzing and crackling in a grotesque parody of language. 

Hitsugaya glanced around, searching for a way out. The garish patterns on the walls and ceiling weren't as random as they had initially appeared. Viewed at the right angle, human faces leaped out at him: two adults he didn't recognize, playing with a blond baby girl; Matsumoto laughing in the apartment living room; Hitsugaya's face from a thousand different angles, his hand reaching out to--

 _"Enough!"_ Hitsugaya froze the ribbons as he pulled water from the air and converted it into massive quantities of ice. His bindings snapped under the unexpected weight, and darted free, leveling his zanpakuto at the witch. He didn't want this fight, he didn't want _any_ of this, but there was no way out now but to win, no way out but to defeat her--

Even with his bankai extending icy dragon wings across his back and granting him added maneuverability against the tangled mass of ribbons she threw at him, it was a difficult battle. Ribbons were inherently flexible weapons, and the witch appeared to have retained Tomoe's creativity and innovation amidst her all-consuming obsession. Hitsugaya kept holding back in the vain hope that she would wake up at any moment, though she had no such scruples when it came to him and any attempts to reach out to her only enraged her further. 

Eventually, though, he wore the witch down enough to entrap her completely in ice, her ribbons frozen and useless. Before she could break free, he swooped down from the sky and cut her down, praying as he did so that it would mean an end to the nightmare, that Tomoe would bounce back as soon the witch was gone--

It worked, or at least he thought it did. The witch shrieked as Hyorimaru cut her in two, an agonized wail that was far too much like Tomoe's own voice for comfort. The labyrinth vanished, and Hitsugaya was back in the genkan of her apartment, with Tomoe herself sprawled at his feet.

" _Tomoe-san!"_

Even as he screamed her name, he knew it was too late. She was no longer breathing and nothing he did could restart her heart. The body he held in his arms was only an empty shell, and her soul gem was missing. But it was only when he fished out the object clutched in her hand--the only thing with any hint of reiatsu to it--that Hitsugaya let himself finally acknowledge what had happened.

It was a Grief Seed.

The jet black stone was wrapped by delicate gold filigree in the shape of a stylized five-petaled flower, with a long jagged spike at the base that allowed it to balance upright on his palm without falling. But the flower was the same one that formed around Tomoe's soul gem when she transformed--the faint traces of reiatsu as he rolled it in his hand were all too familiar.

What had Tomoe said? " _Witches are born from curses and despair--_ " She had been exactly right--but hadn't known just how right she was. But Kyubey--Kyubey had known from the beginning. _That_ was why it was so interested in making contracts, _that_ was why it collected Grief Seeds, _that_ was why Hitsugaya was a threat to its operation--

 _How_ and _why_ still escaped him, but the rest was all too clear. The truth had been right there in front of him from the very beginning. He just hadn't been able to put the pieces together until it was too late--

 _She was so strong,_ he thought absurdly. _The most amazing fighter_. Yet despite her considerable skills on the battlefield, she was still an emotionally fragile fifteen year old girl who had lost her parents and her future and her only friends. Her grief over Hitsugaya's impending departure had tipped her over the edge, and sealed her doom.

Hitsugaya knew from experience that his current situation was extremely precarious. Newly hatched Grief Seeds were extremely delicate, and the slightest bit of magic could trigger a massive explosion as the witch re-spawned. If he wasn't careful, he'd set it off, forcing him to fight Tomoe again. 

Once had been bad enough. He didn't think he could bear it a second time.

Tomoe had dedicated her life to protecting people from witches, he thought. She would be devastated if she knew what she had become. She would beg Hitsugaya to save her if he could--or at least end her suffering as quickly as possible.

His options at the moment were extremely limited. He could put the Grief Seed in a kido barrier and hope the Twelfth Division scientists could restore her once he returned to Soul Society with Matsumoto. But the thought of handing Tomoe over to Kurotsuchi's custody filled him with dread; he knew he could never live with himself if he condemned her to such a terrible fate. Urahara Kisuke might be able to help, but he was a wild card outside the official hierarchy. The Captain-Commander would not be pleased if Hitsugaya handed over the Grief Seed to him instead of directly reporting back.

There was only one other path left to him.

Slowly, carefully, Hitsugaya drew Hyorinmaru from his scabbard. The Grief Seed failed to explode in his face and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Good-bye, Mami," he said, the words catching in his throat. Hopefully, she'd forgive him the intimacy of using her given name under the circumstances. "I'm sorry."

Very gently, he set the Grief Seed in Tomoe's cold, still hands and tapped the hilt against the black stone .

As with every other Grief Seed-- _every other fallen magical girl,_ he corrected in numb horror--it glowed a brilliant blue for a moment before fading away to nothing. The soul burial had worked. The witch was gone.

Mami Tomoe was free.

 _Oh, that's too bad,_ an all-too familiar voice said in his head. _Mami was the strongest magical girl I have contracted in a long time. She would have made a powerful witch. What a pity you've extinguished her usefulness now._

Hitsugaya froze, unable to believe his ears. The little white rat sat on the other side of Tomoe's body, staring down at her corpse with those unblinking red eyes. "Useful?" he hissed. "Tomoe-san is _dead_ and _that's_ what you care about?"

 _Human beings truly are irrational creatures. That was the whole point of her existence._ The red eyes turned to regard him, the fixed half-smile of Kyubey's mouth a mockery of true mirth. _Besides, it was always Mami's deepest desire to be of service to others--_

Hitsugaya lost his temper at last. "You know _nothing_ of what she would have wanted!" he snarled, his rage so cold it burned. "She never wanted anything like _this!_ "

He didn't even to have to ask Hyorinmaru's assistance, nor speak the incantation. The dragon inside him roared, and Kyubey was instantly engulfed by ice in a translucent tomb that shattered to pieces from Hitsugaya's unrestrained spiritual pressure.

Unfortunately, Kyubey was not so easily vanquished. Even as the pieces of its broken body hit the floor, another creature--an identical clone of the first--emerged from the shadows to continue the conversation.

 _How unwise of you, Toushirou Hitsugaya,_ it said with the same perky inflection as before, as if its fellow hadn't been violently murdered in front of it. The contrast between its words and the level tone was jarring. _Retreat now and leave Mitakihara to us. We will no longer tolerate your interference in our affairs._

Hitsugaya raised Hyorinmaru for another blow, but this new Kyubey was too fast for him. With a flick of its tail, it slipped back into the shadows and was gone before he could strike.

Hitsugaya surveyed his surroundings blearily, as if he'd aged several centuries in the last five minutes. The entire genkan was covered in ice--a glacier half a meter thick that extended several meters into the living room of Tomoe's apartment. A smaller iceberg extruded from the sink, scattering dirty dishes in its wake. A half-filled teacup, precariously positioned on a saucer, rested on the table, no doubt where she had set it when she answered the door. The tea itself had frozen and expanded in the chill, resulting in a narrow hairline crack running up one side that would only enlarge further when the ice thawed, and yet he couldn't shake the sensation that she would rise up at any moment and finish it off. 

She did not. The empty shell of Tomoe's corpse lay in the genkan where she had collapsed, her spirit lost to him. Hitsugaya sat beside her in the cold, empty silence, unable to move from her side until Matsuomoto found them.


	4. Chapter 4

Matsumoto stayed behind to take care of the funeral arrangements as Tomoe had no family of her own. Hitsugaya was grateful that the Captain-Commander's orders spared him any involvement; he didn't think he could bear it. He left Tomoe's body in Matsumoto's hands and never looked back as he stepped through the Senkaimon to return to Soul Society, a trail of winter swirling in his wake.

Mayuri Kurotsuchi's announcements at the assembled captains' meeting an hour later were anticlimactic, as the laboratory evidence only confirmed what Hitsugaya had personally witnessed with Tomoe: Kyubey was transforming the souls of young girls into miniature hogyoku and consuming them for its own nefarious purposes. It was cruel; it was wrong; it was obscene--but most importantly, it disrupted the delicate dance between life and death as souls were wiped out of existence. Therefore, the military was duty-bound to put a stop to it.

Thus began the war between the shinigami and the alien creatures known as the Incubators. Thanks to the assistance of human allies--most notably Karin Kurosaki and her twin sister--Hitsugaya's forces were able to capture one alive in the initial skirmish, which provided an abundance of useful information before and during Kurotsuchi's enthusiastic vivisection.

Hitsugaya spent the next three months in a numb, colorless haze, consumed by his single-minded focus to avenge Tomoe's death. The Incubators were not capable of emotion--they considered the ability to feel such things a mental illness of the highest order--yet they learned to respect, if not fear, the plunging temperatures that inevitably heralded the captain's presence on the battlefield. He was on the front lines in every initiative and skirmish, never letting up on the enemy for a moment.

Something hopeful and trusting within him had died when Mami Tomoe did. The guilt ate at him, haunting his dreams on the rare occasions he slept. _She cared about me--she trusted me--and I failed her. It's my fault she's gone--_

Never mind that it was Kyubey who had tricked her into his dubious "contract" in the first place. Why hadn't Hitsugaya realized the truth sooner? Why hadn't he guessed how emotionally fragile Tomoe was, how the news of his departure might impact her? Why--

He reminded himself over and over again that Tomoe would have been as horrified to know the truth, would have insisted on soul burial immediately had she been able to choose her fate. Unlike her less fortunate colleagues, she was neither fuel for the Incubators or Kurotsuchi's test subject. Hitsugaya had purified her Grief Seed and she was free--wandering somewhere in Soul Society if only he could find her.

But first there was a war to win.

So he fought like a demon, battered his way through the endless slog of battles, only to patch himself up and keep going until it was over. He kept moving, afraid to stop lest he be overwhelmed by the memories of that last nightmarish battle with Mami's witch--of cradling her dead body in his arms--and never get up again. His despair might not transform him into a monster, but he couldn't afford to give up--not if he wanted to avenge her.

He hadn't known how much he cared for her--how much he would miss her--until she was gone.

_I wish I could tell her how important she was to me. I wish I had told her who I was, what I was, so she'd understand why I was leaving--and that I'd be back as soon as I could, that I wasn't abandoning her, that it was just until the Captain-Commander saw reason--_

Though there were heavy casualties on both sides, the shinigami eventually wore down the Incubators' defenses. The creatures were forced to retreat off-planet to lick their wounds and develop new energy sources that didn't disrupt the spiritual balance of the universe and peace--such as it was--returned to Soul Society

Hitsugaya barely paused when the news of their victory broke. He threw himself into his self-appointed task of finding Mami Tomoe in Soul Society if she was there to be found.

He knew it was a fool's errand; the odds of locating a single soul among the teeming millions of the Rukongai were poor at best. For all he knew, Tomoe could have already died and reincarnated into world of the living to a happier life, a better life than any she could find here.

Even if her soul was the still same, she would no longer be Mami Tomoe, or at least not the same girl he'd known once she was reborn. She might have the family and friends she'd longed for--but none of them would be Hitsugaya. She wouldn't even remember who he was. The two of them would be strangers to each other if they met again on the streets of Mitakihara, forced to start all over again and with no witches left to bring them together. There would be no place for him in her new life if she had truly moved on.

But one way or another, he had to know. And if there was the slightest chance she was still in Soul Society, he would move heaven and earth to find her.

Hitsugaya was accompanied on his searches by his childhood friend Momo Hinamori, the two walking side by side as they roamed through the streets of West Rukongai where they'd grow up together. It was a little like old times, even if now they were engaged in very grim, very adult businesses of the war and its aftermath--and venturing into darker and more dangerous places than they had ever dared to go as children. 

Momo knew all too well what it was like to be hurt, to lose the person you loved to rank treachery and betrayal--and to do whatever it took to keep moving forward. Hitsugaya's pain had jolted her out of her own deep grief over Aizen's treachery, and she helped Hitsugaya now as best she could, though she had no shortage of her own duties in the Fifth Division to attend to. The two of them had known each other for so long they were beyond the need for conversation, which was a relief; Momo never asked why Hitsugaya was searching or suggested that he stop.

Though he never would have expected it, Matsumoto rose to the occasion, taking on most of the day-to-day tasks her captain was too busy and distracted to perform himself--including the paperwork. Sometimes she went with Hitsugaya on his travels into the Rukongai, but mostly she remained holed up in his office in the Tenth Division headquarters, until she was running it in all but name. She fussed over Hitsugaya when he staggered back late at night after another fruitless venture, made sure he ate and slept when it was clear he was running on fumes. Hitsugaya would have been proud of her if he had been able to feel anything but the same blank numbness.

She'd been fond of Tomoe too, in her own way. Perhaps taking care of her captain now was how she coped.

Despite Hitsugaya's point-blank refusals, Captain Ukitake kept popping by at random intervals bearing armfuls of candy and repeated invitations to visit the family estate at Ugendou. Hitsugaya had little appetite these day, and had never care much for sweets to begin with--but he would have eaten anything, no matter how saccharine, if Tomoe had been the one to make it. She had loved baking, and it was hard to look at wagashi now without remembering how they would never have tea together again--

The worst part was that no one except Matsumoto had met Tomoe--knew what he was grieving for and why. And he couldn't talk to her about it--couldn't bring himself to speak the words. Every time she tried, he shut down, and eventually she stopped asking.

It was Karin Kurosaki, of all people, who showed him the way forward. "I hate to say it, but you should ask Goat-Face about this," she said apropos of nothing when Hitsugaya dropped by Karakura one day for a visit.

"Goat-Face?" he repeated in confusion.

Karin sighed. She was older now, almost the same age as Tomoe before her death. She'd been horrified by the existence of the Incubators and done what she could to help, but the war had been hard on her, too. "I mean my dad," she said after a moment.

Her father was Isshin Kurosaki, _né_ Isshin Shiba, the previous captain of Tenth Division. The Kurosaki patriarch had given up everything--his status, his responsibility, his duty, even his name and title as a True First--to save the life of a beautiful Quincy girl he met while on patrol in Naruki City.

Hitsugaya had known the story, of course--Isshin's whereabouts were an open secret he had intentionally overlooked, letting his former commander live out his new life in peace. Even after connecting with Isshin's children--even after Isshin himself had taken part in the battle against Aizen--Hitsugaya had stayed away, not knowing what they could possibly say to each other after their lives had followed such different paths. But now...

Now they had a lot more in common.

So a few days later he knocked on the door of Isshin's clinic when his children were at school. Hitsugaya was concerned the reunion would be awkward and strained, but he needn't have worried. Isshin was delighted to see him, though he quickly sobered as he listened to his unexpected visitor's tale.

Karin was right. Isshin _did_ understand. Isshin had been able to save the person he loved, right up until the point where he couldn't. Mami Tomoe had slipped away before Hitsugaya even could even do that much. He hadn't even realized how much he cared for her until she was gone.

At least Isshin had his memories of happier times with his wife, and three exuberant children to keep on going. Tomoe had vanished, the Incubators had retreated, and all the remaining magical girls and witches were neutralized. What, then, was left for Hitsugaya to do with himself?

When he said as much, Isshin offered him a cigarette, which Hitsugaya automatically declined. "Suit yourself," Isshin said, unoffended by the refusal. "I miss Masaki every day, Toushirou-kun. I'll always miss her. But you know, life goes on. It's okay to relax, be happy, enjoy your life. I'm sure Miss Tomoe would have wanted that for you."

But Hitsugaya couldn't bring himself to do it.

***

It was a beautiful spring day in the Seiretei without a cloud in the sky--except for the one perpetually hovering over Hitsugaya, wreaking havoc on the local weather patterns. As much as he preferred the bare expanse of winter, he had to admit that the warm breeze against his face was and the chirping birds were... nice, in a comforting sort of way.

Tomoe, he thought, would have liked them.

"Message for you, Captain," Matusmoto said as he came into the office after lunch, holding out a shimmering black hell butterfly.

He took the messenger insect on his finger and frowned. It was an invitation from Ukitake to visit him at his ancestral estate of Ugendou later that afternoon.

"Captain...." Matusmoto's voice trailed off and she cleared her throat when Hitsugaya turned back to her. "I really think you should go," she said at last. "It'd be good for you."

Hitsugaya glanced over at her suspiciously, but could detect no ulterior motive--just the same concern she always exhibited in his presence these days. No doubt Ukitake would continue to ignore the rejections and keep sending more invitations until he finally caved. Better to do it now and get it over with, especially if Matsumoto was also on his case about it.

"All right, all right, tell them I'm coming," he said shortly. The butterfly fluttered away in the direction of Ugendou with the new message as Hitsugaya trailed after it on foot.

Ukitake was picnicking on a blanket under the cherry trees on the estate grounds, drinking sake and composing spontaneous verses with fellow captain Shunsui Kyoraku, clad in his usual Sugegasa straw hat and garish pink kimono over his uniform . Both of them broke off their poetry competition when Hitsugaya approached, waving him over with enthusiastic greetings.

"Yeah?" Hitsugaya said shortly, uncaring if his brusqueness came off as rude. "What do you want?"

Ukitake smiled. "Shiro-chan, there's a surprise for you by the koi pond."

"What?" Hitsugaya's eyes narrowed and he smelled a set-up; Ukitake's 'surprises' tended to be hit or miss. From the way Kyoraku was grinning, it was probably a joke at his expense, but there was no help for it now. "Fine, whatever. I'll be right back."

He crested the hill, and took the winding stone path down to the water. The view itself was pretty enough if you cared for that sort of thing, though the otherwise tasteful rocks and shrubbery were interspersed with the bonsai trees Ukitake had mutilated in the name of his misguided sense of aesthetics.

This side of the lake was lined with cherry trees, and the pink and white flowers shimmered as a breeze sent a hail of petals flying everywhere. Giant speckled carp poked their head above the water's surface in the vain hope that the cherry blossoms littering the surface were edible.

Hitsugaya glanced around. There was no sign of anything remotely surprising--though when he looked more closely, there was a girl kneeling besides the water, silhouetted against the trees.

"Oi," Hitsugaya called out, not wanting to scare her by popping out of the shrubbery unannounced. "Captain Ukitake said there was a surprise for me out here. You know what he's talking about?"

The girl turned at the sound of his voice and their eyes met from across the garden. Hitsugaya barely registered the golden hakama and white kosode, his eyes leaping straight to the familiar face floating in his vision like something out of a dream.

She wore her hair differently now, too--braided carefully in a coil instead of trailing down her back or in bouncy bold pigtails. But there was no mistake. He'd recognize that reiatsu anywhere.

He stopped short. _No. It can't be. How--?!_

"Hi-....Hitsugaya-san?"

" _MAMI-SAN_!"

He flash-stepped across the remaining distance and slid to the ground beside her like a runner sliding into home plate in one of Karin's pick-up baseball games with her school friends. He threw his arms around her as he clutched her to his chest, heedless of his dignity and hers, determined never to let go. The most important thing was that she was here with him--she was solid, she was real, he'd found her at last--

"How--how--"

"It really _is_ you," Tomoe whispered. She let out a shaky breath. "I-- It's so good to see you, Hitsugaya-san."

Hitsugaya reddened as he registered how close her face was to his, and abruptly let go. "I'm sorry," he said, struggling to get his bearings. "That was too forward of me, Tomoe-san. I--"

"No, no," she said and there was that familiar laugh again, like they were still in Mitakihara before everything had changed. "Please--keep calling me that. I--I liked it."

His head buzzing too much to take in all at once. Tomoe--no, _Mami._ Here, in Ukitake's garden in Soul Society. Real. After all this time--

"I wasn't sure you would want to see me after--" Mami continued.

"No," Hitsugaya said firmly, cutting her off before she could get started. "Don't you _dare_ blame yourself. None of it was your fault."

"You--you don't hate me then?"

"Hate you--?" he choked. "Mami, I fought a _war_ to avenge you." It felt good but strange to say her name aloud, to be here so close to her. "There's no way I could ever hate you."

"I know. Rangiku-san told me. She's not really your aunt, is she?"

"You've seen Matsumoto? Where? How--?"

"She and your friend Hinamori-san are the ones who've found me. I've been living in District 46 of South Rukongai until they brought me to Captain Ukitake." Not the best district, but far from the worst of the Rukongai slums, a part of Hitsugaya's mind noted absently. "I didn't know you were here too, or else I would have tried to find you before now."

He owed Matsumoto so much. Momo, too. They must have been combing the Rukongai in every spare moment without him when they weren't engaged with their other duties. Both of them had grown up in the Rukongai themselves and known what life there could be like. _They must have been really worried about us._ He had no idea they'd been going behind his back on this.

Hitsugaya shook himself. "I'm sorry," he said at last. "I should have trusted you with the truth of who and what I was. You never should have had to endure any of this."

"It wasn't so bad," Mami laughed, gamely making the best of it. "Better than being a witch--"

"You remember?"

Her voice was soft and sad. "Enough."

He hugged her again, fierce. "The Incubators are gone. We won. They'll never hurt you again," he promised, relieved that he could honestly say that now. "They'll never hurt _anyone_ again." He'd worked very hard to ensure that was the case.

"I know," she said, smiling, a hint of her old amusement back in her eyes. "Rangiku-san told me. Momo-san, too. They said you were a captain. A hero."

"I'm not a hero. I couldn't save _you_." His voice caught in his throat at the mention of the war and the hell of battle--not to mention all the magical girls he hadn't been able to save. 

"Hitsugaya-san--"

"Please," he interrupted. "Call me 'Toushirou'."

"But I thought you hated it when--"

Hitsugaya brought his face close to hers to emphasize his point. "I hate it when people call me that who don't deserve the privilege. You do. You've earned it so many times over."

"Oi, Juushirou-kun," Kyoraku's voice drifted across the garden where he and Ukitake were watching the proceedings with interest--flanked by Matsumoto and Momo. "How long do you think before they kiss?"

Mami and Hitsugaya pulled apart, both bright red as they registered their unexpected audience. Matsumoto tittered like an idiot behind her hands. Momo waved.

"Now, now, Shunshui-kun, that isn't nice," Ukitake chided. He turned to Hitsugaya and Mami. "Well, Shiro-chan, I see our little surprise was to your liking after all. I'm sure you both have a lot to catch up on, so for now we'll leave you be--but come and find us when you're ready--

Hitsugaya stood there gaping, as the four shinigami strode away, their laughter echoing behind them as they made their way up the hill.

The wind picked up, releasing another swirl of cherry blossom petals into the air. A koi surfaced in the water beside them and submerged itself again with a violent slap that made both of them jump.

"Toushirou," Mami said after a moment. "Thank you. For everything."

Hitsugaya rounded on her. "How can you possibly thank me? I--I _killed_ you."

"I was already dead--was dead the moment I took Kyubey's contract," Mami said quietly. "I knew I was living on borrowed time since my parents died--I just didn't realize how much. You freed me."

There was nothing he could say to that. Nothing he hadn't already thought over and over again during the darkest days of the war.

"It's funny," she added after a moment. "I guess I don't mind dying if that was the only way to be free. But you know the funny part is that the whole time I was in the Rukongai, I wished--more than anything--that I could see you again. Maybe you think it's silly, maybe you don't want anything to do with me now, but--I'm so happy I got my wish."

Hitsugaya took a deep breath and gathered up his courage. "That was my wish, too. One of them, anyway."

"Oh? What was the other one?"

 _You can do it,_ Hyorinmaru said with a regal nod in his head.

Someday, Hitsugaya's growth spurt would kick in, but for the time being, Mami was still taller than he was. Fortunately, the height difference was less noticeable when they were both on the ground, but still had to sit up on his haunches in order to kiss her.

He was terrified he'd misjudged her interest, and half-expected her to recoil, and pull away, but she didn't. After an intial jolt of surprise, she kissed him back, leaning into the connection.

"Please don't _ever_ leave me again," he said shakily when they finally pulled away from each other.

"Only if you promise the same thing."

Hitsugaya didn't hesitate for a moment. "Deal."

Her hand slipped into his warm and solid, and she pressed against his side, nesting as though she belonged there. He decided that was a great moment to kiss her again, and he did.

There would be time later to sort everything out--all the logistics and bureaucracy that came with incorporating a new soul into the Seireitei establishment. What place was there in the rigid hierarchy of Soul Society for a shinigami captain and a magical girl with no witches left to fight?

But he wasn't going to worry about any of that right now. Now it was enough to sit under the cherry blossoms beside the koi pond holding Mami in his arms and be fully present for everything.


End file.
